Remakes and Reboots

Every once in a while I will use this blog to post my views on trends in movies and such. And one such topic involves remakes of movies: When is a re-make actually an adaptation, a re-make or a reboot? In short, a re-make typically involves using the same kind of story with the same setup, but with different, albeit similar characters. It usually unravels in typically the same fashion. An adaptation typically involves an original source, say a comic book, novel or short story. There can be multiple movies that based on the same source, in which case they are adaptations, not re-makes. A reboot usually involves taking an established franchise or story, takes the characters of said franchise or story and keeps them fairly intact while throwing everything else out, and starting over. I'll give a few examples:

Take the recent Star Trek film, starring Chris Pine as James Kirk. That film is considered a reboot, because after Nemesis, the franchise became stale, and Paramount decided that the best way to reinvigorate the franchise was to take established characters like Kirk, Spock and McCoy and put them into an alternate time-line. While respecting the existence of the original time-line, the new Star Trek film reintroduced classic characters to new audiences and remained faithful to the original crew of the Enterprise as portrayed in the original Star Trek series and the films 1-6. The new film just takes them and puts them in a different reality that seems a little....different. But it worked. Star Trek was a fantastic film that could have failed miserably. Paramount take a real risk and captured lightening in a bottle. This is how a successful reboot works, much like Christopher Nolan's take on the Batman mythology. Then there are ones that aren't nearly as successful like Friday The 13th. It didn't really get anywhere and didn't push the envelope the way the original film did. As a result, a sequel hasn't been made.

For some people, the term adaptation doesn't seem to apply to movies, but in truth, it does. John Carpenter's The Thing is the best example of this. John Carpenter's film is considered by many to be a re-make of The Thing From Another Planet, released back in the 50s. Wrong. Like The Thing From Another Planet, John Carpenter's film was also adapted from the same short story, "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, published in 1938. The story involved a creature that could look and sound like anyone that it came into contact with. John Carpenter's film gruesomely depicted a monster that absorbed and imitated the people that it attacked, and while it didn't achieve box-office success back in 1982, it found it's audience on home video and is considered to be one of the greatest adaptations, with some of the best visual effects in science fiction and horror. Stephen King's The Mist is also another great example as is The Green Mile.

Now, we get to re-makes. It's easier to identify re-makes these days because Hollywood is too scared to take chances on original subject matter. Typically, a re-make will take an idea presented in earlier film and try to "modernize" it with new actors and plot-lines while maintaining the overall story. The best example of a successful re-make is Scarface. Everybody knows the film that really put Al Pacino on the map, with his successful portrayal of a Cuban refugee that becomes the drug kingpin of Miami. While it is an awesome movie, most people aren't aware that the film is based on Howard Hawke's film of the same name, release back in 1932. That film, instead of dealing with drugs, dealt with the bootlegging of alcohol which was banned under the Prohibition, during the Great Depression. Having seen BOTH films, the Al Pacino film doesn't make fun of the original, but maintains its bleak and violent outlook of the first film, while updating the subject material to something that was relevant during the 80s, which was trafficking of illegal substances like cocaine and heroin, and the consequences of that activity, which usually came to a violent end. There are many re-makes that are blatantly that. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Flight of the Phoenix, 3:10 To Yuma just to name a few. A handful of them are actually any good. The aforementioned 3:10 to Yuma is one. Nightmare on Elm Street? Not so much.

There are few movies that can actually be considered an adaptation, re-boot AND a re-make. X-Men First Class would be considered a re-boot and an adaptation of comic book characters, but is not a re-make in any way. The most recent film I can say that IS a combination of all three is LionsGate's Conan: The Barbarian. It's based on Robert E. Howard's character of the same name, updates some of the story that you saw in John Milius' film with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but is also a complete reboot of a franchise that went completely flat in the mid-80s, after the dismal failure of Conan The Destroyer. But some would argue the new film is not an adaptation of any of Howard's stories, and they're right, but the character and some of his characteristics HAVE been adapted from some of his stories, even if those stories haven't been told on screen yet. Unfortunately for LionsGate, the new Conan movie was a box-office failure, both critically and financially. Which is a shame, because I don't think it's a bad film at all, and in fact I've reviewed the film here on a previous post, and I gave it a fairly good score.

In the end, does it really matter if a film is a re-make, reboot or an adaptation? For me, not necessarily as long as it's done right, and done with passion and respect for the source material, and a lot of times these days, they're not done with respect to the source as they should be. Some of the comic-book movies released in the past few years, haven't been, like Ghost Rider. That was a dismal film that somehow managed to spawn another movie to be released in the next year or so. But another question could be: Can a movie be TOO faithful to the source material? That's another question for another time, but it's certainly worth exploring.

Saving Private Ryan

World War II was considered to the be the last great war of the last century. America didn't enter the war until December 7, 1941 when Japan launched a full-scale attack on Pearl Harbor. After that, America was intent of ridding the world of the powers that would threaten the free world: Germany, Italy and Japan. On June 6, 1944, the United States and its allies launched a daring invasion of France to rid Europe of the Nazis. The Invasion of Normandy would prove to be the major turning point in the war, when we pushed back Hitler's forces and gained a foothold in Europe to launch a major counter-attack against the German war machine. Saving Private Ryan takes place during the backdrop of this invasion.

When the Americans land on Omaha Beach, they are greeted with a wall of steel that literally rips through them, and leading them through fray is Captain John H. Miller(Tom Hanks) to get through enemy lines and open up a hole so the American invasion can continue. After the Germans are pushed back from the coast, Miller is given a new set of orders: To find a young soldier, Private Ryan(Matt Damon) in the 101st Airborne, who lost all of his brothers in combat, and bring him home. Taking a small platoon of soldiers including Sgt. Horvath(Tom Sizemore), Pvt. Jackson(Barry Pepper), Pvt. Caparzo(Vin Diesel) and Medic Wade(Giovanni Ribisi), Miller fights his through enemy lines to find Ryan. Saving Private Ryan is without a doubt one of the greatest war movies ever made, and not just because of the opening invasion of Normandy. The opening invasion is one of the most grueling and brutal scenes ever filmed for a war movie, but it shows the brutal reality of war. It's bloody, and lots of good men lost their lives. Steven Spielberg, known for his Indiana Jones films takes a gritty and realistic turn with Saving Private Ryan, not only showing the reality of war, but how a group of soldiers come together as brothers for a common cause.

The story in Saving Private Ryan is largely fiction, inspired partially by the Sullivan brothers. The 5 Sullivan brothers served in the same unit when they were all killed. It was then decided by the US Military that brothers should never serve in the same unit. And this is part of what makes Saving Private Ryan so powerful. When high-ranking officials learn that the mother of Private James Ryan is going to be getting three telegrams reporting the deaths of her other children, they decide its in her best interest that Ryan comes home alive. In reality, when you look at the overall war, things like sending a platoon of soldiers to find one man never happened. It was far more important to win the war than to worry about one person. Considering that many families lost sons, brothers and fathers in the war, it was never even considered a possibility. Regardless, the story in Saving Private Ryan is a very good one that shows the relationships between soldiers and their commanding officer, and that really helps drive the movie. If you didn't care about the characters, you wouldn't root for them or feel bad if they died.

Saving Private Ryan won many awards including 5 Academy Awards which included Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Editing and Best Effects. The opening D-Day invasion is beyond compare as it is one of the most realistic depictions of war I've ever seen and has yet to be topped. The music by John Williams takes a back seat to what happens on the screen, but when it shows up, it has an emotional impact. This in emotionally gripping tale of soldiers attempting to do their duty and depicts them as real human beings that have doubts about what their doing, but ultimately do the right thing. Steven Spielberg hit this one right out of the park. At nearly 3 hours, the film doesn't drag at all. With spurts of action throughout the picture, and with the exception of the first 40 minutes, this is more about the characters than the actual war, even though it is very important to the story. The film was based on book written by Steve Ambrose. For fans of war movies and great story-telling, it really doesn't get much better than Saving Private Ryan. It's a very powerful film. I give it a perfect 10/10.

It goes without saying that if we were not able to push the Germans back on D-Day, the war would have gone on, the Holocaust would have continued, and more lives would have been lost. As I stated above, D-Day was probably the most important turning point of the whole war. Families lost brothers, sons, and fathers in one of the bloodiest battles in US history. But if it wasn't for their sacrifice, we most likely wouldn't be having the lives we have now. Saving Private Ryan is not only an entertaining film, but it also serves as a testament to the heroism and sacrifice of the soldiers who laid everything on the line for us. The price of freedom has always been paid with blood, and its easy for some of us to forget that. In this day and age, that's not something we should ever forget.